Session Information
31 SES 13, Research on Writing and Academic Language
Paper Session
Contribution
The following paper presents a study about teacher students writing. The overall purpose is to evaluate the mobile phone (here labeled SMDs – social mobile devices) ability to collect data connected to writing activities. I pose the question how one can capture students writing and how students interpret the instructions and the research tool for this particular study.
The studies of academic literacies tend to rely heavily on a social constructivist view on writing, where some stable discourse communities (here the academia) are considered privileged and something that students passively are socialized in to. In studies of writing there has also been a tremendous focus on the writing process as a general skill, a cognitive competence, as well as linguistic studies of the product of writing, the text. In my paper the focus is instead on individual student’s writing activity when dealing with the textual challenges they are facing when attending their training. As put forward by Prior, the research concerning literacy, should focus on heterogeneity, agency and learning as something that is not only an effect of a sociocultural algorithm(1998:17). The writing here and now is, according to Prior, not autonomous domains but represents situated actions that cannot be translated into special rules or discourses (ibid.). In accordance with Prior’s view on academic literacy and in contrast to several earlier studies, the aim of using SMDs as a research tool is to target the actual activities that students engage in when producing texts. The purpose is to be able to analyse how students represent actions, thoughts, feelings and motivations connected with writing as well as tracing the exchanges and activities that influences all of these aspects. In short, the aim is to focus writing in action, as here labelled writing activities. The theoretical framework for the present study relies on a view on language as situated and writing as in constant dialogue with its surroundings. Language and symbols are seen as concrete, historical, situated and social phenomena instead of abstract, depersonalized and non-situated activities. This perspective is based on a dialogic understanding of semiotics that focuses the situated and mediated character of an activity and that notices the semiotic mediation and its integration in the everyday, sociocultural life (Prior and Hengst 2010:6).
There is an increasing tendency in the public and pedagogical discourse in many parts of the world to describe student’s writing as a problem (Lillis 2002:21). The putative crisis in literacy among university students could have many causes, one being that the universities are accepting a larger group of students from different social groups. In Sweden this change is most apparent in certain disciplines, such as nurses training and pedagogics, since former unrepresented groups of students are attending these particular programmes to a higher extent (SCB 2014:11). These groups of students are supposed to have greater difficulties facing the academic literacy demands and it is therefore of importance to put focus on how they are handling these challenges. The higher educational system is, further on, without doubt facing certain challenges as well, when it comes to educating a new and larger group of students. It becomes especially clear when focusing writing, the semiotic system that the educational system is built around. The competence of writing (and the research concerning it) is therefore of great importance since this competence in many aspects is crucial for student’s success or failure in their training.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Becker, H. S., & Richards, P. (1986). Writing for social scientists: How to start and finish your thesis, book, or article. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press. Becker, H. (2000). Cases, causes, conjectures, stories and imagery. In R. Gomm, M. Hammersley & P. Foster (Eds.), Case study method: Key issues, key texts (pp. 223-233). London: Sage. Graff, H. (1987). The labyrinths of literacy: Reflections on literacy past and present. New York: Falmer Press. Lillis, T. M. (2002). Student writing : Access, regulation, desire. Hoboken: Routledge. Prior, P. (1998). Writing/Disciplinarity: A sociohistoric account of literate activity in the academy. Erlbaum: Mahwag, N.J. Prior, P. A., & Hengst, J. A. (2010). Exploring semiotic remediation as discourse practice. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Roozen, K. (2010). The 'poetry slam,' Mathemagicians, and middle school math: Tracing trajectories of actors and artifacts. In P. Prior, & J. A. Hengst (Eds.), Exploring semiotic remediation as discourse practice (pp. 24-51). Basingstoke: Palgrave. SCB - Statistiska Centralbyrån. (2014). Universitet och högskolor högskolenybörjare 2013/14 och doktorandnybörjare 2012/13 efter föräldrarnas utbildningsnivå. UF20SM1403. URL: http://www.scb.se/Statistik/UF/UF0212/2013L14/UF0212_2013L14_SM_UF20SM1403.pdf (2015-01-21).
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